Star Trek: Search for Hell’s Gate
by Sumspy504
Summary: The Borg transwarp hub must go, but at what cost?
1. Default Chapter

**Star Trek: Search for Hell's Gate**

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters, ships, or other material featured in canon Star Trek material. I do however own this story and the names of several characters. No copyright infringement intended. _

Chapter 1

…_The mission was different. The ship was different. The crew was different. Everything was different except for one critical thing. The leader… _

Sarah Downs, a troubled Starfleet captain, had untaken an anything but perfect career. But the troubles of the Dominion War were far behind her at this point.

She had been a young, fresh faced commander when "Call of Duty" was replaced by "kill the ugly bastards before they kill us." During the war with the Dominion, Starfleet and the Federation alike realized the harsh reality; the galaxy wasn't as civil as people sitting in offices would like.

Her thoughts about earlier incidents aside, Downs had taken command of one of the most feared ships in the quadrant, the Prometheus Class Cruiser. Her and her crew's objective was simple; eliminate or cripple the Borg transwarp network.

As long as this tool was intact, the Borg could be anywhere in the quadrant almost instantaneously. The risk of a Borg assault fleet emerging over San Francisco at any given time was too much for Admirals and members of the council to even think about. They had to take action.

So someone had the bright idea to create another war hero that would most defiantly have a future in politics. To make it even better, they chose someone who despised them for everything they had ever done…

"Get those sensors online! We've got to leave within the day and I'm not going into the Delta Quadrant blind!" Downs yelled over the sound of EPS conduits being fitted and consoles being moved and removed. The bridge of the _Raptor_ was going to be the only one of its kind in the fleet.

A young Vulcan female walked onto the bridge in her yellow security uniform. Immediately placing a type-2 phaser in the weapons locker located in her booth.

Examining her controls, the captain watched her from across the bridge. "Lieutenant T'Friak?" Downs yelled as the Vulcan started to the turbolift.

Straitening and pulling down her uniform the Vulcan turned and placed her hands behind her back. "I'll take that as a yes then," Downs said as she walked towards the security officer. "I'll need you to start turning this ship into a flying fort, we're going into the Delta Quadrant. A lot of people will want to shoot us out of the sky. Work with Harvick down in Hazard Ops and make sure they don't get the chance."


	2. Chapter 2

Enterprise-G: Sorry, but some of these chapters may take a while to come up. Not as much time to work on it as I'd like.

**Chapter 2**

Downs frantically walked back and forth across the bridge. She had just ordered her tactical officer to fortify the ship. This was the revelation for her. She was about to enter the most dangerous place in the galaxy.

The mission was to be a long but simple plan. Destroy or do damage to the Borg transwarp hub, then "haul ass like Halsey." One in a million things could cause this mission, hard from the start, to go horribly wrong. For this, she'd need an engineer, and a damn good one at that. None in site, she walked to her ready room and took a seat.

Down in Hazard Ops the formalities between Major Harvick and Lieutenant T'Friak were over and the real work was beginning. _Raptor_ carries 28 Hazard Operations personnel, all of which are trained in another area of expertise other than the frontline combat they were accustomed to as Starfleet Marines.

This unit, which was now operating under the term "Hazard Operations Department" had saw some of the hardest, bloodiest combat the Dominion War had to offer.

"Let's talk policy." Harvick said as he secured a type 2 phaser into a holster on his waist. "What sort of armaments should our troops have when going into the unknown? Such as to a seemingly abandoned ship?"

The Vulcan Lieutenant glanced upward as she too placed a type 2 phaser at her waist. "The Delta Quadrant is dangerous, we know the Borg and Hirogen both have started to change their tactics up on us, and as to our last engagement they were doing it quite well. I would say that when our people are going into anything short of a scientific survey they should all be armed with rifles, and even then she should have at least one person with a rifle present."

Harvick walked to his office, took out a PADD and walked back to the Hazard Ops armory. "Almost all of my personnel have already checked in here and I've got them around doing other tasks, I believe we're ready down here, how is security going?"

T'Friak quickly looked up. "Security is efficient, all of my officers have checked in and are on ship working on getting us into space or at the Starbase bring over supplies."

Harvick nodded, "will that be all?"

Two hours later Downs was seated in her command chair, T'Friak at Tactical, and all of the other bridge crew members were in place.

"I guess this is when I'm supposed to say something dramatic to take us out of spacedock, eh?" Downs said as she looked at the operations officer to her right. "Open a shipwide hailing frequency." She said as she stood up.

"_This is your captain speaking. We're about to leave spacedock and I thought it would be a time for me to say something dramatic. Well, I'm not very good at these things, so I guess I'll just leave it at this… Lock and Load."_

And with that, the Prometheus-class cruiser left spacedock, and then the system. _Raptor_ was officially underway.


End file.
